How to Clean a Grill Properly in 30 Minutes

Everyone loves grilling out, whether it’s with your family or a large gathering of friends. To keep your grill on the top of cooking condition, you should thoroughly clean it at the beginning of each grilling season. Regular cleanings will help extend the life of your grill parts. The grates can be cleaned using a long handed stiff-wire brush. In this article, I will share you an ultimate guide on how to clean a grill. Read on!

Preparation

To clean a grill, you need only a couple simple things. First thing first, it’s a brush. You can get any kind you want as there are a million out there. However, in my opinion, I usually use a Weber grill grate brush as it’s cool and works great.

If you don’t have a brush, you can use a ball of aluminum foil held with long-handled tongs.

The other thing you will need is some grill cleaner. For those who wonder, my favorite is Cabela’s. It’s non-toxic, non-corrosive and biodegradable.

How to clean a grill: step-by-step instruction

With gas grill

Heat the grill

If you use a gas grill, right now, the first thing you should do to clean your grill is to close the lid down and heat the grill up really hot. Just turn the burners all the way up. Actually, there are two major reasons to do this. Number one is if there is any kind of bacterium, mold or stuff growing in here, this will kill everything. It’s because nothing is able to live through 550 degrees, you know, for any length of time.

The No.2 reason is that when you heat the grill up, you can see all of the food particles and things that have built up all gunk on the grates. When it heated up such that hot, what happens is all leftover food will be burnt into carbon. That means basically it turns black and gets really crusty and easy to scrape off when you want to clean it.

After heating the grill in 15 minutes, it will be almost 700 degrees. Basically, you just need to get it as hot as possible and then start smoking away.

Turn the gas off using the valve on either the propane tank or gas line, and clean the grates.

Image source: Real Simple

Use the brush to get rid of stuff on the grill

When the smoke has almost completely gone away, turn all the burners off. And now, it’s time to use the brush. Start scraping away all of the stuff on the grill until it is clean. And it might be necessary to flip those over.

However, bear on your mind to do it carefully as the grill is still super, super hot.

Use the grill cleaner

If you just recently clean your grill, you just need these two steps above, heat it up and brush to make sure it’s shiny and clean.

On the contrary, in case you have put a lot of work on it, like smoke a brisket, ribs, a bunch of burgers and all kinds of things, you need to take the cleaner and spray everything inside. But first, before you get in there and start scrubbing, make sure that you let the grill cool off because, again, it was 700 degrees.

After spraying, get in there with a towel and start wiping up. You can use any kind of towel available but I myself prefer paper towels. Because I can just throw them away without worrying about it stinging the heck out of some nicer towel.

Image source: Food52

However, with more stubborn stains and dirt, you might need a sponge to cut it on and get all stuff that the paper towel just leaves behind.

After it’s done, make sure you spray everything off with water, put everything back in place and wipe it down dry with a paper towel cover up the grill.

To help prevent food from sticking to the grate the next time you cook and avoid rust, you can apply a layer of vegetable oil by applying it on folded paper towels or a rag.

You can then clean the outside of the lid and cook box using soap/grill cleaner and water. Towel dry and cover the grill until its next use to prevent rust.

Remove the heat deflectors

With a gas grill, after cleaning and oiling the grate, you should remove the heat deflectors located over the burners.

The heat deflectors can be cleaned with dish soap and water and dried with a towel. This will reduce future flare-ups.

Clean burners

Next up, remove the burners themselves. Over time, rust, food, and debris can cause a blockage to some of the burners’ gas ports causing weak or uneven burning.

Remove any blockage using a stiff, wire brush. When cleaning the ports, it’s best to brush across the ports. Brushing lengthwise may push more debris into the burner holes.

Clean the burner valve with soapy water, and be sure to run water through the inside of the valve to remove any debris.

Clean the cook box

While the cook box is empty, clean it using a brush and warm soapy water, then move on to the underside of the lid.

It’s best to remove the propane tank below, a place a bucket under the cook box to catch the dirty water. Then, just rinse with a garden hose.

Image source: DIY Network

Reinstall parts

Towel dry the burners and reinstall them. When washing the outside of a stainless-steel grill, use a specially formulated stainless-steel cleaner.

Use a microfiber cloth and clean the outside of the grill with the grain of the stainless steel for best results.

Ceramic, porcelain and painted steel surfaces can be cleaned using soap and water.

If you are storing the grill outdoors, you can keep the propane tank attached. On the contrary, if storing insides, always remove the propane tank, and keep it outside away from the direct sunlight.

With charcoal grill

Remove from base of the grill all the leftover ash

If you use a charcoal grill, you should know that overload ash builds up might make the vents logged at the grill bottom. It will be harder to force it to examine the temperature while you are cooking.

Delete the grate at the base is going to make the ash’s last getting out easier. When you have deleted all the ash, cleanse the inner side of the cook box.

Then start brushing and cleaning the grill with a specially formulated cleaner like the gas grill cleaning instruction above.

Tips

With often grilling, the best way is replacing the great brush each season because the tool will wear down over time. After completely cleanse the grate, you should apply a coil coating.

Image source: Wirecutter

If the temperature of the grates is still too hot, use a cooking oil spray or utilize long handed tongs.

For those who store their grill outdoors, utilize a grill featuring weather resistance that covers between uses. By this way, it helps to preserve the appearance and extend the grilling life.

Once there are any grill parts eventually become fail, there’re replacement sections which are always available in your surroundings.

With a gas grill, it should be cleaned while still warm after each grill use to remove stuck-on food.

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